Cyclone season triggers memories of Rosita

By Clancy McDowell

It's been thirteen years since the West Kimberley suffered a Category 5 cyclone. Hearing from a few people who bunkered down when Cyclone Rosita swept across the coast is a good reminder of what the Wet season can bring.

Broome and Bidgyadanga are lush coastal Kimberley towns. But it has taken years to regrow the gardens and native bush following the devastation of a cyclone. It's hard to imagine today what the towns looked like following the impact of TC Rosita on April 20, 2000.

Rosita brought with her wind gusts of 153 km/h and 163.8 mm of rain for the 24 hours on 20 April. The storm howled through town and vegetation was ripped up, particularly many African Mahogany trees which were either snapped off or uprooted.

Sand on Cable Beach was severely eroded, revealing the rocks and sweeping away the plam trees that once dotted the dune area near the surf club. The eastern shores of Roebuck Bay also suffered severe erosion.

Further down the coast near the actual impact, the cyclone decimated the original Eco Beach Resort when it veered 40kms south of Broome in the last few hours of its trajectory. The effects of the event were felt as far East as Balgo.

Anna Mardling, a long term resident of Broome remembers spending the event at a friend's house. Being together was supportive. One person turned up very late at night after Red Alert had been declared, having run through the Broome streets in the storm to join them, rather than spending the time alone in his own house.

"You could feel the wind change as it came towards Broome and it shifted direction" says Anna. As the red alert was declared the town electricity was cut off and that's when the battery operated radio became a lifeline to the outside world. Like so many others that night, they sat on the enclosed verandah and listened through the howling gales as George Manning broadcast throughout the entire event.

George was the only fulltime staff member of ABC Kimberley at the old Napier Street studios. There was no back up power and when the electricity was cut off. George had to resort to broadcasting to the Kimberley on a mobile phone, being diverted via the Perth studios.

Unlike today, there was little digital connectivity. George spent a lot of time on the phone to the Bureau of Meteorology who gave him GPS points. He read the GPS points out over the air and all over the West Kimberley, groups of people huddled in houses, plotted the trajectory of the cyclone onto cyclone tracking maps in the back of the Broome Shire directory.

The ceiling in the old ABC studios collapsed during the broadcast and George kept going. It wasn't until they were able to get the ceiling fixed at short notice that Western Power were able to reconnect the electricity and ABC resumed normal broadcasting the following morning. Many other people were without electricity for a week or more, surviving with BBQs, canned food and by combining resources.

Anna Mardling remembers the aftermath of the cyclone as very still. "The next day the sun came out and it was the end of the wet season. It was hot, but there was not a drop more rain". The clean up of the town was huge and she recalls the following week as ringing with the sound of chainsaws and trucks as they cleared the town of its strewn and mangled vegetation.

Cape Villaret suffered worst as the newly built Eco Beachresort (only rated to a category 3 cyclone level) was turned to matchsticks on the hillside.

What is the main advice from those who have been through a cyclone before? Anna Mardling advises everyone to go to the tip now. Get rid of as much garden waste and rubbish as possible. That will reduce the liklihood of it smashing your windows or ripping the roof off.

The battery operated radio will be your lifeline to the outside world when you have no electricity. You can listen as ABC Kimberley keeps you in touch with the latest reports and information everyday and during an emergency.

You can also keep up to date with information from DFES or via ABC Kimberley on facebook, follow us on Twitter and check our ABC Emergencies page.